


The Naming of Robots and Making of Friends

by 221BroadwayIron



Series: My Brother, My Friend [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Dum-E - Freeform, Fluff, Gen, It's all fluff, Kid Fic, Kid Harley Keener, Kid Peter Parker, MIT Era, Realistic Depictions of Foster Care, Student Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark is Good With Kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27516712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221BroadwayIron/pseuds/221BroadwayIron
Summary: “We still need a name, guys,” said Tony, standing up and awkwardly brushing floor grit off his pants. “Mr. Harley, any ideas?”“Dummy,” he giggled.Tony ran a hand over his forehead. “You want to name my robot, my soon-to-be-smarter-than-you-young-hooligans robot, dummy?”“Nuh-uh,” explained Peter, while his brother forcefully nodded along, “Dum-EEE!”----------Or, Harley and Peter spend an afternoon hanging out on campus with their mentor.
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Tony Stark, Harley Keener & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Harley Keener & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & James "Rhodey" Rhodes
Series: My Brother, My Friend [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1873138
Comments: 36
Kudos: 226
Collections: Numerous OTPS Infinite Fandoms, Peter Parker's Tales





	The Naming of Robots and Making of Friends

**Author's Note:**

> It's basically just children running around campus, something there's not nearly enough of in real life.

“Hey May, it’s Tony… Yeah, mind if I pick up the twins tomorrow and bring them to campus for the afternoon?... Um, no, it’s not exactly a MBMF thing, but I’ve been working on this ‘bot that I know they’d love to see and I promise it’s totally safe and Rhodey and I’ll both be right there the whole time keeping an eye on them. I’ll even feed them— No, May, not ramen. I can take them to the dining hall. So can I? Rhodey really wants to meet them, you know—”

_“Oh,_ Rhodey _wants to meet them, does he?”_

The man in question snorted at May’s disbelieving voice echoing from Tony’s phone. It was true he did badly want to meet the boys who had turned Tony Stark into a semi-responsible and much softer person, but it was also true that Tony _really_ wanted to show the twins his project and he was using Rhodey as an excuse. Evidently, May could see right through that. Rhodey’s respect for this woman he’d never met rose.

_“Tony, of course they can come see your robot; they’ll love that. And meet your roommate, of course.”_

Tony punched his fist in the air in silent excitement. “Awesome. That’s great. I’ll come get them around 4 tomorrow? And don’t worry about dinner, o-or—”

_“Them accidentally getting severely injured in a college lab?”_

“Y-yeah. I promise, May, I’ll keep a super close eye on them. And Rhodey. He’s already had a ton of practice keeping me from doing stupid stuff.”

“Lots of practice, ma’am,” Rhodey interjected, leaning up against Tony to speak into his phone. “Don’t worry, I won’t let them get in too much trouble.”

_“Is that Rhodey?”_ With a sigh, Tony flicked on the speaker phone. “Hi, Rhodey,” echoed a woman’s voice, “I’m May, nice to meet you. Tony talks about you all the time.”

“No, I don’t.”

“He does, actually.” Tony stoically avoided acknowledging the smirk Rhodey was shooting his way. “I’m off tomorrow, but I can come drop them off. You want them at 4?”

“Four’s good. And I’ve got them until bedtime, so you guys can go have date night or whatever you married folks do when people steal your children.”

May laughed. “Alright, Tony. See you tomorrow.”

“See ya!”

“Bye, May, nice to meet you.”

* * *

It was 4:15 when May’s battered car pulled up outside of the dorm. Tony jumped up from where he’d been sitting on the concrete steps and, closely followed by Rhodey, jogged down to meet them.

“Hi!”

May waved and called hello back before starting on unbuckling car seats. Tony hurried to help, crushing through one of the many piles of fall leaves still to be raked up, and soon there were two identical boys being ushered onto the sidewalk. Their aunt smiled at Tony and gave him a quick hug. “How are you doing? Did you get that lab report done?”

“Yes, May.” Tony rolled his eyes at her question, cheeks faintly pink. “C’mere, this is Rhodey, my roommate.”

The man stretched out a hand to shake. “James Rhodes, good to finally meet you, ma’am. Tony talks about you folks all the time.”

“No, I don’t!”

“Yup. _All the time._ The Parkers _this_ and the twins did _that_ and—”

“I’m regretting introducing you two. A lot.” Tony crouched down next to the boys. “Pete, Harls, look. That’s my friend Rhodey, remember I told you about him?—Oh be quiet, _James!_ —He helps me build robots sometimes—”

“Yeah, and work the washing machine.”

“Man, you need to let that go. I haven’t flooded the laundry room in two years!”

May laughed at that and Tony shot the both of them the most annoyed look he could muster. Oh yeah, he was regretting introducing them. They were definitely going to gang up on him.

“HI!” Harley cried in usual Harley fashion. He liked making friends with new people.

Peter gave a timid wave before burying his face into Tony’s collar. Shy as always, but he would warm up.

“That one’s Harley—” Tony pointed at the one who was now bouncing in place, caramel hair flopping down into his eyes. “—And this little guy is Peter, and—”

“Hey!” Harley yelled, when Rhodey waved at them. “You guh-got BIG muscles!” He jabbed the man’s forearm, which was as high as he could reach.

“Harley…” May started in an apologetic tone, but Rhodey just laughed.

“Yeah? You know what these muscles are good for? This!” He snatched up Harley and deposited him onto his shoulders, keeping his hands on the boy’s knees to steady him.

“WHOA! ‘M in a sky!”

May gave a fond laugh. “You all good here, Tony?”

“Yes, ma’am!” He gave a mock salute, standing up and lifting Peter into his arms. “Let’s say see you later to May, ‘kay? So she and Ben can go and be alooooone.” Peter’s chin quivered, but Tony quickly cut in with a playful, sing-song voice before he could get upset about her leaving. “Besides, we’ve got to go see my roooobot! So we need to get a-movin’. Places to be an’ all that, right, Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater? Say, ‘See you later, May!’”

“See late’ MAY!” yelled Harley. His little shoes beat against Rhodey’s chest in excitement. 

“Say, ‘Go away so we can have fun!’”

“Go ‘way, we have FUN!”

“Okay, okay, I get the message. See you later, baby.” She kissed Peter’s head and Harley’s exposed ankle, and headed off. To their date or whatever.

* * *

It didn’t take long for them to run upstairs so that Tony could grab a jacket and drop off the backpack May had left for the boys, Harley stretching up trying to reach the low ceiling in their dorm building the whole time. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his perch on Rhodey’s broad shoulders. Peter, on the other hand, was very curious about the college students’ room, which the twins had never seen before.

“Dat where you s’eep? An-an-an’ dat a-a sabe’?” Peter scrambled up onto Tony’s messy bed, craning his head to one side so that he could inspect the papers taped haphazardly to the wall with his non-eyepatch-covered eye. Sharks today, pretty cool. 

“Yup.” Tony peered over his shoulder to see which ones the kid was pointing at. Those were the blueprints he and Rhodey had tried to make for a fully functioning lightsaber, at 3 AM and slightly drunk, after going to one of the Star Wars premieres. “C’mon, kid, we’re ready,” he said. His hand shot out as Peter’s foot caught on a wrinkle in the blanket and Tony lifted him easily down to the safety of the floor. “Let’s go!”

“‘Bots!” cried Peter.

“To the ‘bots,” his mentor agreed.

Outside, Harley squirmed until Rhodey put him down and then ran ahead (and behind and around) them trying to chase the grey squirrels that always invaded campus for free handouts. Peter followed him, occasionally dashing back to bring Tony an acorn, which he stuck in his jacket pocket to discreetly dispose of later. 

“Hey, friends! Over here!” called Tony, waving his arm at them. “It’s what they say at MBMF,” he continued defensively in response to Rhodey’s surprised chuckle. “When you hear things 20 times in an hour you start saying them.”

The boys scrambled over, narrowly avoiding trampling a decorative bush, and through the door Rhodey was holding open for them. “Stay close,” he warned.

Tony led the way down the corridor to the door of their mechanical engineering lab. He knelt down so he was the same height as Harley and Peter. _Eye contact is for serious conversations_ , Nat had told him the other day, and once she said it, he remembered Jarvis doing something similar when he was a kid. Except then it had had something to do with dinner parties and wine glasses… 

“Hey, I need you to listen, okay?” He put a hand on each of the twins’ arms. “You have to be _very_ careful in the lab. There are some dangerous things in there, and we don’t want to get hurt, right? So you have to ask Rhodey or I before you touch _anything._ Got it?”

They nodded, brown eyes wide.

“You bet you do.” Patting them on their shoulders, he looked up at his roommate. “Lead the way, platypus.”

* * *

The twins’ faces wore identical looks of awe as they followed Rhodey into the engineering lab.

“You want a tour? You bet you want a tour.” 

Tony steered them around the room, pointing out the high tech equipment and different people’s projects. The boys were overjoyed and stared so seriously at everything their mentor showed them that Rhodey had to stifle a laugh. He could imagine what it would be like if he brought one of his younger siblings or his little nephews to see his project. Chaos, shortly followed by several things breaking, followed by at least one thing blowing up.

But Peter and Harley were evidently good at serious (Rhodey tried not to think about _why_ ), even though Peter started fidgeting in excitement when Tony pulled out the robot he and Rhodey were working on. They clearly found it fascinating. It was for a class and therefore really not much more than a glorified roomba with a claw, but still the boys laughed and squealed as it drove around them in circles and tried to grab their shoes.

“Y’know,” Tony began, shooting a look of confirmation at his roommate, “it still needs a name. What do you think? Want to name it?”

“Uh, um, Boty!” yelled Peter enthusiastically. Harley’s face crumpled.

“I wan’ed a name it,” he pouted. 

Uh oh.

“Um… Here, come here, yeah, over here.” Tony brought him (and an interested Peter tailing his brother) over to the far side of his work station.

There was another ‘bot Tony was building, just for fun. It was the same essential concept as Boty—wheels so it could roll around freely, claw “hand”—but four times the size, voice operated, and much more complex. After all, what was the point of being the son of a billionaire if he couldn’t use the money to buy the best parts he could find for his projects? Howard didn’t care, though the folks in Mail Services were probably sick of having to unload all of his crazy heavy packages. And anyways, _this_ ‘bot would actually be useful after he was done. (He hoped.)

Tony pulled the covering off of the half-finished robot. “This guy needs a name too, Harls. How ‘bout you think up one for him, ‘kay?”

Peter opened his mouth excitedly, only to get shoved by his brother.

“No, _me!_ ” Harley yelled, stomping his foot and crossing his arms. “Not you, dummy.”

“Harley! Y— You—”

Oh no.

They’d never actually fought before, or at least not when Tony was in charge of them. He pulled Peter away from Harley and was just opening his mouth to say _something_ —

_I have to say_ something, _but goshdarnit what do I say? What am you supposed to say? I— Oh crap, we were doing so well. And now what? Oh no, I’m in trouble, that’s not nice. They’re really not supposed to act like that. What do I do? What do I_ do _?_

—when he realized the boy in his arms was giggling.

“Dummy,” Peter said back and now Harley was laughing too. Behind their backs even Rhodey looked like he was fighting back a smile. 

Okay, then. They were okay.

(Was that just something brothers did? Insult each other?)

“We, uh, still need a name, guys,” said Tony, standing back up and awkwardly brushing floor grit off his pants. “Mr. Harley, any ideas?”

“Dummy,” he giggled.

Tony ran a hand over his forehead. “You want to name my robot, my soon-to-be-smarter-than-you-young-hooligans robot, _dummy?_ ”

“Nuh-uh,” explained Peter, while his brother forcefully nodded along, “Dum-EEE!”

“Yeah!”

“You know, I think it’s a great name, Tones.” Rhodey broke in, face as serious as he could make it. The corner of his mouth twitched. “In fact, I think we need to give him a name tag, don’t you?” The twins crowded around his elbows as he carefully printed DUM-E onto a yellow post-it note and stuck it onto one of the robot’s struts with a friendly pat. “There. What d’you think?”

“I think I’m going to get you back for this,” Tony warned as his roommate came back over to stand by his side.

“Or you could just rename him later.” 

“Can’t. He’s already been christened—or whatever the robotic equivalent is—by their grimy little fingers and your holy sticky note.” They watched Harley and Peter excitedly poking every inch of the half-built robot for a minute before Tony clapped his hands. “Alright, kiddos, let’s give DUM-E a break. Once he’s all finished, you can come back and see him, alright?”

The twins groaned, though they returned to their mentor after a few last minute investigations. Peter was eager to keep playing with Boty, but Harley was already bored with the simple robot, so Rhodey unearthed a remote control car that had been one of their practice constructions from lab the year before. Somehow, miraculously, the batteries still worked. Both of them quickly became absorbed in driving it underneath the tables, doing doughnuts, and trying to make it drift.

After narrowly preventing the car from knocking over several canisters of who-knew-what (and instead sending two empty boxes tumbling to the floor), Rhodey asked, “Hey, Harley, should we take this out to the lobby? There’s way more space.”

“No. No, don’ wanna,” the kid stammered. He backed up quickly until he could clutch Tony’s pant leg, eyes darting around wildly for Peter. “Don’ wanna.”

Rhodey froze, face paling.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, buddy.” Tony knelt down to Harley’s height and pulled the boy close to him. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, alright? Rhodey doesn’t mind. He just thought you might have space to do some more fun tricks out there. But you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey said, approaching cautiously and crouching down a few paces away. “We can stay here with Tony and Peter. Do you want to do that?”

“Wanna, um, wanna stuh— stay wi’ my Pedah.”

“That’s okay. How about I teach you how to make the car do a doughnut? We can do it right here, next to Tony. Would you like to?”

Harley paused for a moment, then took a few hesitant steps towards the man. “Y-Yeah.”

“Awesome, big guy. Watch this.”

With that potential crisis averted, Tony turned his attention back to Peter and Boty. Or where Peter and Boty had been. The robot was still there, spinning in lazy circles, but Peter was nowhere in sight. _Where did he go?_

Tony rose on his toes, scanning the room for a few frantic seconds before his eyes finally landed on a shock of curly brown hair, one arm reaching out to—

“PETER, NO!”

The hand jerked away and Peter quickly stumbled backwards, away from the welding torch some absolute _idiot_ had left sitting out on the table. He burst into tears.

This time Tony didn’t even have time to overthink the situation before he was kneeling next to his charge, heartbeat thundering in his ears. Relief flashed through him at seeing that Peter both was unhurt and didn’t seem to be completely terrified of him, despite the yelling.

“T-Tony,” Peter sobbed.

“Hey, you’re okay, I promise. You’re okay, Peter.” He used the heel of his hand to smudge away tears and smooth the kid’s hair off his forehead. “I’m not mad, I’m not mad. You scared me, buddy. That’s all. I'm not mad at you, you're okay.” Tony sat on the linoleum, pulling Peter down to settle on his knee. “Remember how I told you you have to ask me or Rhodey before you touch anything because somethings here are dangerous? Well, that’s a tool that uses fire to heat up metal. Fire’s really cool, but you know what else fire is?”

“Hot, no tuh-touch.”

“You’re right, you’re so smart!” he said, bouncing his knee with the words to make Peter smile. “You can’t touch it because you’ll get hurt and that’s no fun. But we _can_ go back and play with Boty if you want.”

“Say hi DUM-E?” Peter tilted his head back so that he could look up at Tony.

His mentor rolled his eyes and fixed a corner of Peter’s eyepatch that had come unstuck. “You want to say hi to DUM-E first?”

“Yeah.” 

“You know he doesn’t do anything yet, kid,” Tony huffed, standing with Peter on his hip. “But yes, we’ll stop by DUM-E.”

Harley was grinning like a maniac when they returned, tongue stuck between his teeth as he steered the RC car in loop-de-loops around the legs of a table. Rhodey knelt behind him, arms stretching around the boy on both sides to help him with the controller. He shot a triumphant look to his roommate, which Tony returned. 

Looked like Rhodey and Harley were going to be buddies.

* * *

They weren’t the only ones. 

As they walked across campus to the dining hall later, Peter eyed Tony's large hand wrapped around his own and then where Rhodey’s swung at his side. 

“Ho’d hand?” he asked timidly, stretching out his palm.

“‘Course, Pete,” Rhodey responded with a smile and another meaningful look in Tony’s direction. _He wants to hold my hand!_ was evident in his expression.

_Of course he does, you idiot, who wouldn’t want to?_ Rhodey shone like the sun and no one, even a three-year-old, could miss that. Peter did a happy little skip when Rhodey’s dark fingers wrapped around his own.

“Me too! Me too!” Harley grabbed Rhodey by the other hand, swinging it back and forth.

Tony felt a strange sort of fullness in his chest watching his best friend and the twins together. It made him happy in a way that all the parties he’d been to, all the circuit boards he’d built had never managed. And it was good.

* * *

“Hey, Tones,” Rhodey spoke up, extracting one arm to check his phone, “can we stop by the library before dinner? I gotta couple books to pick up.”

“Sure thing. Hup to, troops, we’re taking a detour!” Tony dramatically snatched up a twin in each arm and spun them all around in circles until they faced the sidewalk leading to the library’s front steps. The boys stumbled, giggling, when he set them back on their feet. “Onward!”

Shouting back and forth to each other, they raced to the building, the two college students walking along behind. 

“Wait for us at the steps!” called Tony before they could disappear inside. Actually listening for once, the boys did come to a halt. Peter started experimentally swinging from the handrailing like a little spider monkey while waiting for them to catch up.

Rhodey led the way in and once the doors swung closed behind them, he headed over to the front desk to pick up his things while the others—

“Lookit all a BOOKS!” Harley squealed loudly, causing the heads of a dozen students to swivel in their direction. 

Tony grimaced. Most of them seemed amused, but still. Best not give anyone the opportunity to get mad at the kid for not being quiet while they were trying to study. He bent down to Harley-level, Peter leaning against his leg.

“Hey, buddy, we’ve got to use quiet voices, yeah? We use our inside voices in the library,” he reminded him.

“Shhh,” agreed Harley. He nodded seriously. (Freakin’ adorable.)

“Hi there, can I help you with anything?” A curly-haired student worker leaned over the desk to get a better look at them on the floor. He faltered a little when he realized who it was. “Oh, u-uh, hi, Tony.”

Tony smirked.

Bruce Banner was not only a very helpful librarian, the TA in his Applied Nuclear Physics lab, and had an IQ at least equal to his own, he also was endearingly awkward when flustered. He blushed and stuttered while fumbling whatever he happened to be holding. Tony, of course, had now made it his mission to fluster him as often as possible, which wasn’t very difficult. Compliments, teasing, nicknames, very difficult science questions that he somehow still knew the answer to…

“Well, now that you _mention_ it—”

The guy’s cheeks were already turning pink. Fortunately, he was saved from further embarrassment by Peter tugging Tony’s shirt so that the teenager swung him up onto his hip. Harley grabbed the edge of the countertop and stood on his tippy toes to look up at Bruce.

“Guh-Gotta lotta books!” he whispered violently.

Bruce smiled at that. “I guess we do. Who’s this little guy?”

“Ha’-LEY!” the boy cried in excitement, all traces of his quiet voice vanished. “An’ that my Pe-dah an’ that my TONY!” 

“Well, hi, Harley; hi, P— Peter, right? ” He did a little wave and then glanced at Tony out of the corner of his eye, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. “Nice to meet you. Do you guys, uh, need help with something? N-Not that I can do much, really, because I’m off in a few minutes, but I c-could get—”

“Nah, we’re good, Brucie. Don’t sweat it.”

“Don’t call me that,” Bruce huffed resignedly.

Tony ignored it, as he always did. “Roommate just had to pick stuff up,” he continued. Both hands were occupied with holding Peter, but he nodded in Rhodey’s direction just as the guy collected his stack and turned their way.

“Oh, no _wonder_ it took so long,” he exclaimed, twisting his face into a pretend-annoyed look that set Peter giggling. “Some idiot over here is _hogging_ the best librarian!” Rhodey occasionally liked to get in on the let’s-make-Bruce-go-red game as well. He was rewarded this time with Bruce opening and closing his mouth like a clownfish several times as he tried to figure out how to respond.

Harley spun from the counter to Rhodey. “Wha’ d’ja get?” he asked. “Bob a Builder?”

“Nope, sorry, short stuff,” Tony’s roommate laughed. “They’re for an engineering paper. So more like Rhodey the Theoretical Builder.”

The kid just looked at him.

“We eat duh-duh-dinner?” Peter broke in.

“You bet’cha, dinner’s next on the list.” Tony shifted Peter to his other hip and raised an eyebrow at Bruce. “You’re off now, right? Want to come?”

“Why’d I tell you that?” he mumbled under his breath. What Tony could see of the man’s ears beneath his curly mop were quickly reddening. Apparently dinner offers needed to be added to the list.

“Come on, Bruce, I’ll swipe you in. Free food; you can’t possibly pass that up, now can you?”

“Er—”

“Is that a yes? That’d better be a yes. We need another eye on these troublemakers.” Tony dug a finger into Peter’s side, making him squeal and writhe away from it. “Shh, it’s a library, Petey, goodness _gracious_.” Peter laughed again at the teasingly-affronted tone.

“Get food, Tony,” he whined breathlessly.

“Tell Bruce, he’s the one holding us up.”

“Cuh- _mon_!”

“I, uh—” The man in question rubbed a hand over his jaw and adjusted his glasses. “—Okay, fine. I-I’m coming, I guess.”

“Yippee!”

* * *

Taking two 3-year-olds through the MIT dining halls was an impressive feat. He was pretty sure it ought to count as one of the Twelve Labors of Hercules. Thank Apollo or whoever-the-heck-that-one-guy-was for the pizza station because Harley was having nothing to do with the herb-crusted pork loin option. But, hey, Tony convinced both of them of the necessity of getting some vegetables and apple juice almost counted as a fruit. (After all, scurvy was no joke.) So the Parker’s couldn’t say he was feeding them entirely junk; he was responsible. Ish. It was mostly pizza. And they _might_ have had cookies.

* * *

“You are _kidding_ me!” 

Tony felt his jaw drop at the little, self-conscious smile Bruce shot him from across the table in response. “You’re working on your _third_ PhD _plus_ TA-ing _plus_ you work at the library? Holy— How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Twenty-two, he’s _twenty-two_. Do you even sleep?”

“My housemate forces me into bed a few times a week,” Bruce said with a slight chuckle, then a wince at how that sounded, blush blooming spectacularly across his cheeks.

“Oh, I got me one of those, too.” Tony looked pointedly in Rhodey’s direction, while simultaneously reaching over to stop Peter from putting a slice of carrot on his brother’s head.

“Hey!” Rhodey cried.

Peter pouted and sneakily made a second attempt, this time with a piece of cauliflower. Tony intercepted again. Remind him why had he thought it was a good idea to sit the two troublemakers next to each other?

“So, uh, what’s with the kids?” asked Bruce hesitantly, eager to take the attention off himself. He made eye contact for a split second before looking back down at his food. “Are they, I don’t know… Like your, your cousins or something?”

“No, they’re from MBMF—it’s like this mentoring program for foster kids. And it’s surprisingly enjoyable,” Tony added defensively in response to Bruce’s incredulous look.

“I’m sure,” the scientist agreed hastily. “I’m sure. I bet it’s real good for them. Growing up, y’know, it— it— was just my dad and I and… uh, I was never in foster care or anything, but I’d… Well, I’d go and live with my grandma a lot. Y’know, it’s, um, uh…” 

“Yeah, they do a lot of good stuff.” Tony saved him from the unintelligible tangle he was stumbling his way into. “You should join, Bruce, come be a mentor with me. It’s fun.” It was something more than fun; he still hadn’t found a name for the warm feeling he got from spending time with the twins and their foster parents and the friends at MBMF.

“Tony… I-I don’t have the—”

“What? The time?”

“The… temperament. I don’t— I’m not good at…” 

Tony eyed him and Bruce shrunk into himself under the scrutiny. This guy. “Fair enough. You’ll just have to hang out with us then.”

“Okay.” 

He was still hiding, but Tony swore he saw the hint of a smile.

* * *

Tony tried to convince Bruce to go back and watch a movie with them as they left the dining hall and headed to the side of campus where their dorm was. Ahead of them, Rhodey and the twins were playing some kind of game that involved jumping from leaf to leaf across the sidewalk.

“My roommate just got off work, so he’s coming to get me in a bit,” Bruce said, as they watched Rhodey fake-fight Harley for a particularly crunchy one.

By the tone of his voice, Tony could tell he wanted him to let it go and he did. (Hey, he wasn’t always crap with people. Robots were just easier. _Way_ easier.) Besides, Bruce had never agreed to do anything more than help him find the journal article he needed before; he’d always been too embarrassed. No sense in making the guy more uncomfortable right when they were making progress.

“That’s him.” Bruce motioned down the street to where a motorcycle was pulled over by the curb. The guy riding it—Tony could just make out a black helmet and denim jacket—raised a hand in greeting. “I, uh, I’ll see you around, I guess?”

“Yeah, lab on Tuesday, right?” He dug one of Peter’s acorns out of his pocket and nailed Rhodey in the shoulder blade with it. “Hey, boys, come say bye to Bruce!”

The three of them trotted over, Rhodey with one hand suspiciously hidden behind his back.

“That’s your ride? Sweet, man.” 

The twins waved. Harley gave the man a hug around the knees while Bruce patted him tentatively on the shoulder. Peter looked up with big eyes.

“See ‘gain?”

“Yup,” Tony quickly cut in, noticing Bruce’s helpless, lost look. “We can see him next time you come to campus, alright?” Peter nodded, satisfied. “You can even ask him a bunch of questions about science.”

“Well, I, um, yeah, I guess,” the librarian stammered. “B-Bye then.”

“Bye!”

With a half-wave, he trotted down the sidewalk to the motorcycle. Tony didn’t even have time to turn around before he was getting a handful of leaves shoved down the back of his shirt, courtesy of his roommate. 

“Hey!” he yelled. He twisted, trying to shake the things out, while simultaneously scooping up an armful to throw at back in Rhodey’s face. That, of course, was retaliated against as well, and then the twins joined in the battle and soon there were four bodies sprawled on the ground, grinning and breathing heavily as multicolored leaves rained down around them.

Peter rolled over, inching up to Tony’s side for a sneak attack and laid a leaf right over Tony’s mouth. He blew it off his face, much to the kid’s amusement.

“Ew, blegh. That tastes like dirt, gross.” He wiped his mouth off on his jacket sleeve. “No, that doesn’t mean you should do it!” Tony wrestled away the leaf Peter was about to eat and tugged the squirming child onto his lap, tickling him into submission.

Harley came to the rescue this time, tackling Tony from behind until his mentor tipped over back into the leaves and making (unfruitful) attempts at tickling him in the armpits. He needed more practice (and maybe for Tony not to have the added protection of a coat), but Tony pretended to be cowed anyways until both twins were sitting triumphantly on his abdomen grinning down like twin Cheshire cats of autumn chaos.

They had leaves stuck in their hair and to rumpled shirts. Peter had a smudge of dirt on his nose and Tony wished he could freeze that moment. Because right then, nothing was wrong and these two boys were smiling so hard that it felt like nothing had ever been wrong.

And then the moment broke. Harley and Peter each started yanking on a sleeve to get him to move and Rhodey scooped him up from behind, which made him let out a squawk that was very dignified, thank you very much.

They brushed the leaves off as best they could and headed back to the dorm where they discovered they hadn’t done as thorough a job of it as they had thought. By the time Harley and Peter had been changed into the pajamas May packed for them in case it got late (Cars and Toy Story, respectively) and Rhodey and Tony had exchanged their now-dirt-covered jeans for sweats and clean t-shirts, the ugly dorm room carpet was covered in a layer of leaf debris that sent Rhodey down the hall to see if the vacuum still worked. (It did.)

“You boys cozy?” Tony asked, plugging his computer into the TV balanced on top of their bookshelf. 

“Yeah!”

“Si’ b-by me?” Peter asked.

“No me!” cried Harley.

He glanced over at the two of them as the loading symbol spun on the screen. “I’ll sit right in the middle, how ‘bout that?”

“An’, an’, an’ him too?”

“Rhodey? Yeah, he’s going to sit with us.”

“He your Rh— Rho-ny?” Harley looked up at him inquisitively as Tony squeezed himself between the two boys and pulled the blanket up over their legs.

“Rhodey. And, yup, he’s my Rhodey.”

They left just enough room for “his Rhodey” to squish onto the one end of the bed when he returned from putting the vacuum cleaner away.

“You sit wi’ us!” called Peter enthusiastically as soon as the door swung open.

“Oh, you bet I am,” Rhodey told him, taking his place and leaning back against the wall. Tony fished out the remote and hit Play.

* * *

Both of the twins had dozed off, snuggled easily into the college students’ laps, when Tony’s phone finally lit up with a text from Ben.

_Hey, be there in a minute. Thanks so much for watching them, Tony. Sorry it ended up being so late._

_No problem_ , he shot back, _they were great. Both conked out watching a movie_

Ben pulled up ten minutes later and he and Tony carried two very sleepy little boys out to their car seats.

“Did you guys have fun?” he asked, easing Peter down as carefully as he could, trying not to wake him up too much.

“We did,” Ben replied, buckling Harley. “It was really nice. Don’t know the last time we’ve gone somewhere just the two of us without the boys. I didn’t have to cut up anyone’s dinner, no one spilled their juice on me… And we found this neat place down by the water to take them sometime. How were they for you? Okay?”

“Oh yeah, they’re always fun. Except…” He closed the car door as softly as possible and went around to lean against the car at Ben’s shoulder. “They decided to name my robots Boty and DUM-E.”

Ben chuckled. “That sounds like them.”

When he finished, Tony crawled into the backseat to whisper good-bye to Harley and Peter and run furtive, tender fingers over their hair. Ben was smiling at him as he crawled back out and gave him a quick hug. Tony felt himself flush, but didn’t pull away.

“Thanks again. We really appreciate it and I’m sure the boys had a blast,” Ben said finally.

“Hey, my pleasure.” It always was.

  
  


_El fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it and let me know what you thought! What did you like/not like? Did Bruce seem Bruce-ish?


End file.
